abandonware games sorted by popularity

V for Victory: Market-Garden tackles Operation Market Garden, the ambitious 1944 Allied attempt to seize a chain of bridges in the Netherlands. The game translates this complicated...

Crossfire is what happens when you throw a tank into a maze, give it infinite ammo, and tell it to go wild. Released in 1982, it’s all about twitch reflexes and precise shoot...

Ascii Sector is what happens when someone takes Privateer, removes the graphics, and replaces them with pure ASCII and sheer willpower. It’s open-world space sim meets roguel...

In Search of Dr. Riptide from 1994 is a science-fiction adventure with enough eccentricity to fill several galaxies. Players investigate mysteries, solve puzzles, and generally que...

Stargunner is a 1996 side-scrolling shooter that delivers fast, colorful space combat with plenty of enemies, explosions, weapons, and screen-filling chaos. The player pilots a hea...

Night Raid is a 1992 action game that puts the player into a dangerous nighttime mission where enemies, darkness, and poor life choices are likely to be waiting around every corner...

Battlecruiser 3000AD (1996) is less a game and more a test of faith. Ambitious beyond reason, it promised total control of a massive starship—crew management, planetary landi...

The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time is a science-fiction adventure built around time travel, investigation, and the slightly alarming realization that history can be ruined by...

Released in 1993 for DOS, Fields of Glory is a turn-based strategy game that focuses on historical warfare with a refreshingly thoughtful pace. Instead of rushing you into constant...

Also known as The Crypt, Castle Master 2 is like the goth sibling of the first game—darker, moodier, and with more corpses lying around. The gameplay’s pretty much the ...

By the time Exile III: Ruined World arrived in 1997, the series knew exactly what it wanted to be—and it delivered with confidence. This installment expands the scope dramati...

Released in 1988, Journey to the Center of the Earth draws inspiration from Jules Verne's famous novel and invites players into a subterranean world filled with mysteries and dange...

By 1999, Liero had become a cult favorite thanks to its frantic real-time battles between heavily armed worms. Unlike turn-based competitors, the action never pauses, creating chao...

Cartooners lets you live out your childhood dream of being a one-person animation studio… minus the caffeine addiction. It’s a charming sandbox where you can draw your...

Bolo Ball is a DOS game from the mid-1990s. It features a physics-based gameplay where the objective is to knock opponent balls out of an arena. When you start the game, you find y...

The Dame Was Loaded is a noir-flavored adventure that throws the player into a world of private investigators, suspicious characters, smoky atmospheres, and the sort of trouble tha...

When Strider (1989, DOS) hit PCs, gamers suddenly felt like ninjas who’d been dropped into a Cold War fever dream. You play as Hiryu, a futuristic assassin slicing through me...

Power Dolls is a 1994 tactical strategy game that places players in command of an elite female military unit equipped with powerful combat machines. The game combines turn-based pl...

By the time Earthworm Jim hit DOS, its reputation already preceded it, and it largely lived up to the hype. This is a platformer that thrives on absurdity: a worm in a spacesuit, b...

Skyroads: Xmas Special takes the wonderfully addictive formula of Skyroads and gives it a festive makeover. The basic idea remains unchanged: pilot a futuristic craft along suspend...

Pac Gal is a 1982 maze game inspired by the arcade phenomenon that had everyone running through corridors while being chased by colorful ghosts with questionable social skills. Pla...

Color Buster (1992, DOS) is Sokoban’s rebellious cousin. You push colored blocks across labyrinthine floors like an underpaid warehouse worker in a pastel fever dream. Simple...

Dizzy the egg is back, and this time he’s underwater and floating up on bubbles because... sure, why not? Bubble Dizzy is a mix of patience, timing, and yelling “WHY DI...

History lessons become unexpectedly adventurous in Mario's Time Machine, where Bowser has stolen priceless historical artifacts and scattered them across different eras. Players tr...

Pacific Islands is a 1992 military strategy game that continues the campaign begun in Battle Isle, transporting players to a chain of tropical battlefields where beautiful scenery ...

Deus Ex is a critically acclaimed action role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released in 2000 and was designed by Warren Spect...

Not every game involves saving kingdoms or defeating monsters, and Magic: The Gathering Interactive Encyclopedia proudly embraces a different mission. This software serves as a com...

Quandaries is a 1997 DOS puzzle game that lives up to its name by presenting players with problems that require thought, experimentation, and occasionally the uncomfortable realiza...

Castle Adventure is what happens when a medieval fantasy RPG gets crammed into a game smaller than your average selfie. ASCII graphics? Check. Typing commands like “GET SWORD...

Pit Fighter is a 1991 fighting game that brings brutal underground combat to the computer with a gritty atmosphere and intense one-on-one battles. Players choose fighters with diff...